I never miss a chance to see the work of - and celebrate - Cleveland-based artist Julian Stanczak... a father of Op Art and one of the great artists of all time. So, during a tour of downtown Cincinnati (VERY NICE) last week, I was thrilled to unexpectedly be walked right past Stanczak's landmark 2008 work "Additional", on the Fifth Third bank and parking complex at Fountain Square. My host in Cincinnati seemed pleasantly surprised I was familiar with a work of public art in his Queen City, as I proudly exclaimed "Wow, there's the Stanczak mural... he's from Cleveland" and ran off to take pictures to share with realNEO.

If the art-superstar status of Julian Stanczak was ever to be challenged - for his life-work or his late-career accomplishments, as he remains productive in his 80s - Julian's most recent and important mural-scale public art masterpiece enforces his position at the top of the "art world" forever.

"Additional" covers nearly the entire facade of a 6-story, block-long parking garage with a sculptural op installation that must be the largest and is certainly the greatest work of its kind on Earth. Having had the good fortune to see this masterpiece in person I can say it is even more successful in life than in concept, print and video - it is stunning and transforms a dismal structure, and the dismal surroundings that created, into a celebration of light, energy and color - completely re-energizing a major neighborhood core to this community.

Since the completion of "Additional", a Tiffany & Company story has opened across the street from Fountain Square, in addition to many other important new anchors to this transformed little neighborhood with very BIG OP APPEAL.

Quite significant additions for Cincinnati... or any great city on Earth.

About "Additional" in City Beat, during installation, in 2008:

Polish born, Cleveland-based artist and Op-Art master Julian Stanczak has designed an amazing and dizzying plan for the aesthetic bettering of an ordinary cement parking garage: a series of 356 vertical aluminum tubes, in varying colors, with an additional 200 tubes also in various colors set at diagonals. In the end, the effect will be an Op-Art mural that runs the entire city block from Walnut to Vine streets. The precise arrangement of the tubes causes optical illusions for passers-by, as the colors shift and change according to your position on the street, whether walking or driving past or entering the Contemporary Arts Center across the street.

In 2008, The Best of Cincinnati Site voted Stanczak's work part of the "Best Shot of Local Color for Downtown"...

...even more mesmerizing is the eye-catching redo of the building’s Sixth Street facade, once the bland wall of a parking garage. With counsel from Cincinnati architectural firm FRCH, the bank engaged internationally known artist (and one-time local resident) Julian Stanczak for a block-long piece of public op-art made of multi-colored tubes that seem to undulate as you pass by. The Walnut Street corner has a big-finned Caddy above the entrance to Cadillac Ranch. How cool is it that the once-bland view across from the CAC (Contemporary Art Center) is now one of downtown’s most colorful blocks?

The Queen City Tour Site writes, about "Additional":

Across Sixth Street from the Contemporary Arts Center, this work of art from Stanczak serves not only as a living work of art in the streets of Cincinnati but also as a parking garage façade. Fifth Third Bank commissioned Julian Stanczak to create this façade for their parking garage which debuted in 2007. The work is a total of 522 aluminum bars painted different colors and while you walk down the street, the tubes will change colors giving a nice visual experience.